NOAH Raided: Don't Lose the Big Picture

The FBI is sweeping NOAH's Poydras St. offices for documents related to the corrupt home remediation program. Though Nagin's totally credibly internal investigation has yielded a call for reimbursement of just over $100,000 from contractors paid for services they did not render, because the Mayor himself has alluded to the fact that NOAH's records were so lame that he's can't really be sure which records are 'accurate,' it is likely that the FBI and Inspector General probes will yield a different conclusion.

Jeffrey says:

Of course, the real serious discrepancy that isn't given much attention here is this. This remediation program was originally conceived as a $15 million program to help poor and elderly homeowners recover their property. As we all know by now, the majority of that budget did not actualize as properties were left untouched or improperly demolished or just not even considered for the program. The fact that only about $2 million was actually spent reflects the real failure of NOAH. Be it the result of incompetence, indifference or thievery (and very petty theivery at that if the city's numbers are correct) the failure to follow through on a service like this represents an enormous breach of faith.

But I have a different take. I won't address whether or not $100,000 is a big or small amount to have been laundered because I don't believe Mayor Nagin's internal probe has any credibility. Rather, Jeffrey's assertion that "the real failure of NOAH" was their inability to spend the full amount they had been budgeted on a program for seniors misses the point.

In fact, the real failure, the real substantive problem, is that our city charter allows for quasi-governmental organizations like NOAH to even exist in the first place. Established by the city, funded through the city, staffed with city employees but with no day-to-day accountability to anyone, the questionable practices we've uncovered were enabled from inception.

Besides, please remember that the home remediation program was never really necessary in the first place:

Touted as a centerpiece of Nagin's 2007 budget, the mayor said in late 2006 that he wanted the city to offer gutting services because faith-based and grass-roots groups providing such services had become overwhelmed.

That theory, Davis said, raised eyebrows in the tight-knit community of disaster recovery organizers.

"The idea of this program always seemed silly to us, because we have hundreds of volunteers each month," she said. "There's no reason to hire professional demolition crews to gut houses for old people."

Indeed, as the community nonprofit groups prepared in the spring and summer last year to receive thousands of unskilled volunteers, they were at a loss for properties. Several, including ACORN, a Catholic church group and the Episcopal Diocese program, solicited NOAH officials for some of their addresses, city officials have said.

So while that raises questions for our Mayor and City Council as to why money was budgeted for a program like this no matter which agency got empowered to administer, it also begs why the city chose an agency that operated with such little oversight.

While it is sometimes difficult to seperate out the systems in play from the players under investigation, let us not lose sight of what this investigation should be about: identifying and fixing the broken systems that allowed such blatant waste and fraud to be carried out with such incredible ease without anyone catching it or without anyone saying anything.

From my viewpoint, the utility of the very concept of a city established, city funded, and city staffed non-profit answerable only to a part-time board of directors appointed by the Mayor needs to be examined. We may very well determine that all quasi-governmental non-profit agencies should be written out of existence entirely or folded into civic offices directly accountable to Mayoral overseers on a day-to-day basis.

There are other agencies structured similarly to NOAH and it could be very interesting to examine how they actually operate.

That is why this story is important, that is why all of this is a big deal. The numbers are irrelevant not just because they come from an invalid internal probe but because when legitimate ones are released, but also because, whatever the amounts are, they'll serve to sensationalize or disarm what should be an honest effort to reform the enabling systems in question.

No Worse Way to Start Sunday Morning

Not only did he fail to mention yours truly for being the first to disclose the bamboo-derived fabrics element of this whole NOAH fracas but I had to read through a graphic description of Chris Rose's underwear acquisition process to find out.

Unacceptable.


I have been very content to stick to my supporting role on this NOAH script but the Him Store was my moment. MY MOMENT TO SHINE! Chris Rose you bastard. Jeffrey help, you've been slighted yourself.

Immediate Thoughts On Nagin's Appearance at City Council's NOAH Hearing

First of all, I'd actually like to thank Mayor Nagin for making the time to answer questions on this emergent scandal. Given that the Mayor's defense for the actions of his administration related to the NOAH program thus far has been to deny allegations, downplay the relative importance of citizen questions, and denigrate those asking, I really did not expect him to make an appearance. That he did demonstrates that Mr. Nagin still indeed considers himself accountable to City Council and to citizens demanding that Council do their job. That he didn't want to be there or didn't think he should have had to be there is irrelevant now. He showed up and he answered questions.

Please watch the Mayor Nagin's full testimony here. It is important to take the time and watch the whole thing. Seriously.

That said, this was an example of bush-league governance, you might even call it amateur.

Councilman Fielkow and Councilwoman Midura tried to smooth things over with the Mayor, as there was clearly some bad blood related to the public letter they sent imploring Mr. Nagin to appear to answer questions. This was unnecessary. He was there to speak about NOAH. If he chose to use his time in front of the microphone to complain about your letter, the way you communicate with his office, or the validity of reports by Karen, Sarah, Lee, or I, just let him. All of that should be discussed between the Mayor's staff and that of Council. Ms. Midura and Mr. Fielkow should have asked more specific questions about the allegations at hand.

For instance, the Mayor derided reports that the city was billed for work done on a home owned by Bill Jefferson. Someone on Council should have asked why a task order was issued for that property.

Though the Mayor repeatedly explained that the only relevant list is the one detailing invoices actually paid by the city, he also consistently reiterated that neither he, his staff, nor the internal investigation he has launched has been able to really put together a complete list of pay stubs or properties gutted by NOAH. Nobody on Council asked the Mayor whether or not he believed it was his job to ensure proper record keeping within his administration.

When the Mayor consistently reiterates something to akin to what he said during the 38th minute of his testimony, "I hope to establish what's the real number that the city has actually paid for," it smacks of a core incompetence within the Mayor Nagin's administration and a very basic bookkeeping failure.

That the Mayor has not or cannot immediately account for all the NOAH invoices for which the city was billed is a FUNDAMENTAL issue.

If I were a city councilperson, I would have taken the Mayor's reiteration that his administration's internal investigation would not impede any outside investigation. As Mayor Nagin said during Councilman Carter's inquiry, he really doesn't know what is going to be investigated so he doesn't know who should or should not be conducting the internal audit. The FBI and the Inspector General can determine whether or not the Mayor's people are throwing up walls.

Council, since it had the Mayor right there, should have inquired as to the controls the Mayor has in place to ensure proper bookkeeping from all executive and affiliated agencies. They should have asked whether or not the Mayor believes that the systems behind these types of secondary institutional nonprofits provide for proper transparency and accountability. Do these agencies need to be abolished across the board? Do they merely need a stricter set of guidelines from City Charter?

James Carter conducted himself in the most professional manner, diving right into questions and allowing the Mayor to answer each one without interruption and without broad pontification related to behind-the-scenes communication issues. That may be because Councilman Carter has largely elected not to lead on the issue and has the privilege of not having to defend himself against the Mayor's own accusations of poor 'teamsmanship.'

Arnie Fielkow and Shelly Midura get points for forcing the Mayor to appear. I wish they'd each spent less time justifying their public letter or trying to smooth over the recent acrimony at City Hall. They should have just asked questions about NOAH. The pettiness, the apologetic tone seemed to put the Mayor at ease as it allowed him to rail against individuals on Council for this perceived insult or that.

Cynthia Hedge-Morrell gets zero points for electing not to ask any questions of the Mayor. She gets penalized for any of the three possible scenarios:

1. She was satisfied with the questions her colleagues were asking and with the Mayor's answered.

2. She doesn't feel comfortable asking difficult questions to Mayor Nagin.

3. She doesn't know enough about NOAH or the investigations at hand to ask anything substantive.

Jackie Clarkson gets minus two points because she elected not to ask a single question of the Mayor. That is pathetic for a Council President. After having largely apologized or enabled the Mayor's decision to evade and condemn as this scandal unfolded, she had no credibility when it came to leading a hearing on the NOAH scandal. She would have had a chance to redeem herself had she chosen to ask even one bleeping question of the Mayor. Instead, she decided who's turn it was to ask questions.

Stacy Head was a no-show, apparently out of town. I understand why she wouldn't have wanted to appear at this hearing as she has become a lightning rod for the Mayor's anger, particularly on this issue because she began investigating NOAH back in April. I am disappointed that the public did not benefit from her inquiry.

Cynthia Willard-Lewis was another no-show. I don't begrudge her for not wanting to appear as some NOAH contractors connect to her. That's probably good for minus five points.

Nagin Caves to Council, Shows Up For Hearing with Waffling Answers in Hand

Mayor Nagin's sham internal audit of the NOAH program has discovered "discrepancies" with 46 properties on the city's secret billing list.

Let's be frank: that's bullshit.

Anyway, here's some the Mayor's cowardly responses to some Council questions:

"Given the relationships that exist between NOAH and the city, I think it is somewhat less than credible for the city to do its own internal investigations, especially when others are willing to take this on right now," Fielkow said.

The mayor, however, said "Nothing that we're doing is impeding any other investigation."

When pressed by City Councilman James Carter on whether city employees conducting the internal probe could be subject to investigation themselves, Nagin said:

"I would not know that. I don't think that's correct. I don't know where this investigation is going."

If the Mayor's curious where the investigation's going, he might want to learn how to google. He can also expect some phone calls from the national press shortly. I would hope that he has something nice to say about his citizens.

A Senate Toss Up?

Political pundits and prognosticators have again and again cited the Louisiana Senate race between Democrat Mary Landrieu and Republican State Treasurer John N. Kennedy as the GOP's only realistic chance of knock out a Democratic incumbent in their quest to prevent a filibuster-proof majority. Yet, by and large, there has not been extensive media coverage of the Louisiana race comparable to other swing Senate races around the country. The reasons for that may seem obvious at first-glance.

The Alaska race features the progressive former mayor of Anchorage, Mark Begich against the longest serving Republican Senator, Ted Stevens, who may be as likely to face jail time as he is to see another six years in office. The Colorado contest between progressive Rep. Mark Udall and Abramoff-connected, oil-pocketed Bob Schaffer has largely been a laugh-fest for those of us on the left. The insurgent campaign of Rick Noriega in Texas against arch-conservative John Cornyn and the seemingly unlikely viability of Ronnie Musgrove against Republican Senator Roger Wicker in Mississippi have captured a good deal of attention because of their symbolic implications.

Further, Louisiana political campaigns traditionally receive relatively little national attention because pundits admittedly don't understand the state's electoral structures, to say nothing of the colorful personalities that routinely defy the nation's sense of rational thought.

Nonetheless, considering the importance of this Senate race, I do feel as though coverage of this race has been seriously lacking.

And the specific reason for that may become glaringly apparent by the end of this quick primer.


Incumbent Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu has established herself as a big swing vote, consistently rated as amongst her chamber's most moderate members. While progressives often decry her caves on FISA, the Iraq War, oil, etc., it is clear that she has aptly positioned herself to bring bacon home for her state. Whatever your feelings are on earmarks or pork-barrel legislation, it is difficult to argue that Louisiana doesn't need or deserve as much federal help as it can get.

Then there's John Neely Kennedy, the State Treasurer.

In 2004, when Democrats were working to save the open seat vacated by longtime Senator John Breaux, John Neely Kennedy was a Democratic candidate. He couched himself as the most progressive option in the primary, running to the left of eventual nominee Chris John. He even gave an enthusiastic speech introducing John Kerry, whom he endorsed, at a campaign event in New Orleans.

Still a Democrat and still the state treasurer well into 2007, the Louisiana GOP seemed to be struggling to find a candidate to run against the effective Landrieu. Top Bush advisor and possible convict Karl Rove made a special trip to meet with potential challengers. At the time, Stuart Rothenberg (see link), noted that Rove's eroding stature may have rendered him an ineffective recruiter, especially for a Democrat.

Yet John N. Kennedy was somehow convinced and a few short months later, switched his affiliation, ignoring not only all of the foibles of the GOP during the Bush administration, but also constantly updated national poll data reflecting overwhelming public dissatisfaction. In November of 2007, just five weeks after being reelected State Treasurer, he announced his intention to run against Landrieu.

Since then, he has run an inarticulate and unenthusiastic campaign. His inability to raise money in reputably ruby red Lousiana forced him to call in George W. Bush to Katrina territory for a fundraiser in late March.

The Daily Kingfish crunched the numbers when the 2nd quarter fundraising totals were released. The Bush fundraiser alone accounted for over one third of Kennedy's meager haul. Without Bush's help, Kennedy would have raised less money in the 2nd quarter than he did in the first.

Meanwhile, Kennedy has awkwardly masked his party-hopping and flip-flopping by just gobbling up GOP talking points with little regard for fact. Last month, he took one of the more insulting routes possible, repeating the GOP-derived myth that "not one drop of oil" spilled during Hurricane Katrina ignoring that the talking point is patently false. While that may put you in the good graces of John McCain's campaign, it is awfully insulting to the people in your own state that survived the storm and are still learning the extent to which our eroded environment contributed to the strength of the storm and the extent to which the storm has eroded the environment.

Then, after slamming Mary Landrieu for an appearance with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg because of Mr. Bloomberg's progressive stance on social issues. That is ironic for a couple of reasons. First, as Oyster from Your Right Hand Thief points out, Kennedy has had trouble deciding how much he'd like to associate with sex-scandal marred Republican Senator David Vitter. After taking campaign money from Senator Vitter, he refused to answer whether or not he would be accepting Vitter's appearance on the campaign trail. Then he decided to indeed schedule a joint appearance at the end of August. The second interesting point to note about that is that Senator Vitter was once regional campaign chair for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is a well-known liberal on the same social issues for which Kennedy panned Bloomberg.

Just last week, the Daily Kingfish made another interesting observation about a Kennedy radio appearance - he was reading his policy on oil shale nearly verbatim from a wikipedia entry.

So with a filibuster-proof Senate majority on the line, the GOP has pinned its only hope of defeating an incumbent on a guy that isn't even properly prepared for softball radio interviews.

One would think that national GOP operatives would be really promoting this race in the media or working the right-wing fundamentalist roots for donations or activist assistance. But they're not. Not at all.

Maybe it's because not even the local GOP seems interested in this race.


This is John N. Kennedy kicking off his campaign bus tour to his most loyal supporters:



Here is one of his events in Alexandria, another critical population center:



Here is John Kennedy speaking to a quorum of supporters at another appearance in Houma:



So it's no wonder the national press doesn't have much to say about the supposedly-critical Senate race in Louisiana, neither does the local GOP. They're not exactly lining up to greet the man. Additionally, since John Kennedy has proven not to have much to say for himself, it looks like Mary Landrieu might not have much of a race on her hands after all.

Did you volunteer for NOAH or did NOAH volunteer you?

This is a critical angle of the NOAH scandal for which I have had trouble getting concrete, reportable information. It is so helpful to have the Times-Picayune working on this.

The latest effort by Michelle Krupa is excellent and puts together some critical elements of this story to the general public:

It appears, however, that another crew has taken credit for demolition work at Grandpre's house. City records show that Hall & Hall Enterprises, the highest-paid contractor in Mayor Ray Nagin's home remediation program, billed the city $7,830 for gutting and boarding up the house and cutting the grass at the St. Anthony Street property.

The house is one of at least seven addresses that appear on two lists detailing post-storm remediation. One list belongs to the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana's Office of Disaster Response, which organized volunteers from across the country to come to New Orleans and provide free home remediation services, such as gutting and boarding up homes, to residents in need of help.

Those same addresses appear on a list produced by the nonprofit New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Corp., which oversaw a remediation program that contractors billed a total of $1.8 million.

There's a problem with this report, however, and I'll explain.

When it became clear to me that volunteers had worked on some of these NOAH houses, there were three distinct scenarios that might account for their involvement.

First is that NOAH had selected properties to bill taxpayers for that had already been worked on my volunteers. This scenario implies that NOAH's seemingly random property selection process happened to also net a number of properties that had received volunteer services and that NOAH was just going around adding properties to their list with no intention of ever even checking whether or not a home needed gutting or boarding services. Also within his general scenario is the possibility that NOAH specifically chose properties they knew had already been worked on by volunteer groups. This implies that NOAH officials sought out lists of properties that they knew had already been worked on OR that officials from volunteer organizations had unwittingly, mistakenly, or intentionally provided their database of properties to city officials.

The second scenario is that NOAH was prepared to bill for a list of properties and contacted volunteer groups directly or through other city agencies to have them gut properties for which NOAH had already planned to pay contractors.

The third scenario is that volunteer organizations themselves sought out lists of homes that needed services from the city and NOAH officials ensured that some of their properties were provided to them.

Each of these scenarios allow for different degrees of complicity by volunteer organizations and officials with the Nagin administration. On one end, as I'd like to believe, nonprofit organizations were pillaged by city officials and volunteer labor was used to cover up NOAH's money laundering. At the other extreme, certain volunteer organizations or their leadership bears some degree of culpability for sharing lists with the city. For city officials, we face the possibility that officials throughout NORA and ORDA knew about NOAH and attempted to aid it in covering its tracks on one end or the possibility that Stacey Jackson and her staff specifically cultivated confusion and manipulated relationships under the radar of administration brass on the other.

So let's keep the volunteer scenarios in mind and take another look at Krupa's article:

Other groups that have provided free gutting services declined to share with The Times-Picayune the addresses to which they sent volunteers. The nonprofit Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now Inc., also known as ACORN, cited privacy concerns. A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of New Orleans cited a federal law that protects medical patients' rights and said it bars the release of such information.

That's problematic because Amanda Davis of the Episcopal Diocese disaster response office was willing to go into detail:

Davis said that while she was not aware of the duplications on the Episcopal Diocese's and NOAH's lists before this week, she long had harbored suspicions about the city's remediation program.

Touted as a centerpiece of Nagin's 2007 budget, the mayor said in late 2006 that he wanted the city to offer gutting services because faith-based and grass-roots groups providing such services had become overwhelmed.

That theory, Davis said, raised eyebrows in the tight-knit community of disaster recovery organizers.

"The idea of this program always seemed silly to us, because we have hundreds of volunteers each month," she said. "There's no reason to hire professional demolition crews to gut houses for old people."

Indeed, as the community nonprofit groups prepared in the spring and summer last year to receive thousands of unskilled volunteers, they were at a loss for properties. Several, including ACORN, a Catholic church group and the Episcopal Diocese program, solicited NOAH officials for some of their addresses, city officials have said.

"It was always kind of funny, though," Davis said. "We knew at the time that something weird was going on. They wouldn't e-mail the lists. You had to drive by City Hall and pick it up from somebody."

Now that's fascinating. According to Krupa, city officials are alleging that volunteer organizations specifically solicited NOAH officials for lists of properties. This after the NOAH home remediation program raised eyebrows throughout the volunteer community for being "silly."

Now Davis' organization seemed to make the same foolish mistake that ACORN and some Catholic charities made and will also have to go back into the books to provide more details. Who did they pick up their lists from? Why didn't they say anything even when they knew something weird was going on?

But what this really must do is force ACORN and the Archdiocese to open up and help us figure out how this occurred. I'm sorry but citing "privacy concerns" of homeowners that may have been fleeced for their tax dollars or of individual volunteers who may have been unwitting slaves for the city's money laundering scheme seems a little bit inappropriate. These organizations have every interest in completely examining their role in the NOAH scandal.

Has Nobody Noticed How Famous I Am?

You guyzzzz, I won this award and nobody even gave a care. Waaaaa!

John Kennedy A Flip-Flopper, An Office-Hopper, and Now A Plagiarizer?

Just caught up on some Daily Kingfish.

He posted on this last week but I'm thinking it needs to be reiterated.

Did you guys know that Senate candidate John N. Kennedy has taken his energy platform nearly verbatim from wikipedia?

Because wikipedia at least has it's facts straight?

Huh?

Celebrities = Evil

Currently, Talking Points Memo is covering the release of the latest anti-Obama ad from the McCain campaign. The new effort sticks with the line that Obama is "the biggest celebrity in the world" that was used in the much-discussed recent ad that spliced in clips of Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears.

Greg Sargent at TPM notes:

As I reported here the other day, the McCain team was devoting a third of its ad budget to the first celeb ad. That, combined with the fact that they're sticking with the "celeb" theme, suggests that internal polling shows it may be working.

The "celeb" epithet is all about cheapening the mass political support for Obama and redefining the Obama movement as one that's less about politics and issues and more about cult of personality. By asking whether this "celebrity" is prepared to help your family, the McCain team is trying to get people to see whatever temptation they may have to support Obama as somehow fundamentally misguided and not rooted in what's really important.

Sargent's first observation is dead-on. The McCain campaign obviously likes what it sees from this attack strategy. It is interjecting the Obama-as-celebrity theme into a second news cycle, funding the crap out of previous efforts, and hitting the airwaves with related talking points like retired generals fresh from Rumsfeld's yacht.

The second observation, that the "epithet" is about "redefining the Obama movement as one that's less about politics and issues and more about cult of personality," is somehow both oversimplifies and overestimates that thought that goes into the new ads.

It is an overestimation in that this isn't about redefining Obama's movement as a cult of personality unattached to issues or politics, it's about loading the word "celebrity" as a powerful epithet. When the ad leads with "Is the biggest celebrity in the world ready to help your family," it's about both painting celebrities as uncaring, out-of-touch, and phony at their core as much as it is about labeling Obama as a celebrity.

I don't think it's so much about snapping up would-be Obama supporters tempted to join the popular crowd as much as it is about bludgeoning Obama and the enthusiasm around his campaign as unAmerican insofar as celebrities and fame are seen as corrosive to traditional culture whereever the "real" American "heartland" is. It is about finding a way to derogatorally refer to Obama and his campaign, a way to ridicule and minimize, a way for McCain surrogates and supporters to "go negative" without being flagged for out-and-out racism. The first 'celebrity' ad, the one with Hilton and Spears, pushed that envelope in a way that allowed the McCain campaign to test what they can and cannot get away with.

Because of that, we may also be oversimplifying the intent of the new effort in another way.

This and subsequent ads from McCain's celebrity-as-epithet series don't need to have images of blonde women to conjure up the same memes, associations, and emotions because the style and theme of the campaign will be constant.

Here, the McCain campaign has set another trap for Obama and his supporters. When the left called the McCain team out for the images of white women in the last ad, it backfired (as demonstrated by McCain's decision to press on) with a counter attack related to inappropriate use of the race card. With this new ad, the McCain campaign is hitting on the same themes and associations, this time using a white woman narrator to mash together a fearful drum beat, chants of Obama, and images of the candidate's face with an overall emphasis on the word celebrity. If Obama supporters go after the McCain campaign on the narrator and on the racial overtones that remain in the celebrity meme, they'll again open themselves up to charges of 'playing the race card.' Indeed, it sounds ridiculous to suggest the McCain campaign bar the use of female voices in their attack ads. On the other hand, the Obama campaign must find a way to castrate the power of 'celebrity' as an epithet or the McCain campaign will continue to stockpile different ways to use the term like Obama is Y2K.

The first link at the top of the post can get you to the video. I'd rather not embed it because I'd like to see it as little as possible.

I Inflated my tires

I like it.